GENDER, OVER SHARING, AND CYBERBULLYING IN ONLINE MULTI-PLAYER GAMING (MMOG) ENVIRONMENTS

摘要

Cyberbullying in online gaming environments has been researched in recent years and has been found to impactvictims similarly to traditional bullying. The relationship between gender and cyberbullying activities, has alsobeen investigated. While some studies have indicated that girls may be more likely to participate in some forms ofcyberbullying behavior (e.g. posting, texting, and instant messaging hurtful things), many researchers have foundthat male gamers are more likely to be the perpetrators of cyberbullying during online gaming. This paper extendsexisting research by focusing on the relationship between player gender, avatar gender, personal data sharing, andcyberbullying behavior in Massively Multiplayer Online Gaming (MMOG) environments. While this research foundthat gamers perceive that there is a relationship between gender and the likelihood of cyberbullyingbehavior/victimization, players actually reporting that they have been the victim of cyberbullying is not vastlydifferent between avatar genders nor real player genders. Of those that never exhibit cyberbullying behavior, mostare female gender and almost half use a female avatar exclusively. In addition, there seemed to be an emergingtheme that sharing personal data, in particular a real picture of oneself, may be related to cyberbullying in onlinegaming environments. Although both genders tended to share the same number of personal data items, femaleplayers were more likely to share a real picture of themselves.